Snow depth, sea ice thickness and interface temperatures derived from measurements of SIMBA buoys deployed in the Arctic Ocean and Southern Ocean between 2012 and 2023

DOI

This data collection, assembled as part of the Arctic PASSION project, encompasses 96 Snow and Ice Mass Balance Array (SIMBA) buoys that were deployed between 2012 and 2023 in the Arctic Ocean (predominantly the Transpolar Drift Stream) and the Southern Ocean (Weddell Sea/Atka Bay). SIMBAs are thermistor string type IMBs (Jackson et al., 2013) which measure the environmental temperature SIMBA-ET and a temperature change around the thermistors after a weak heating is applied to each sensor (SIMBA-HT). Based on a manual classification method, the SIMBA-ET and SIMBA-HT were processed to obtain snow depth and ice thickness (smoothed with a 3-day running mean), as well as the thermistor number, the vertical position Z relative to the snow-ice interface and the measured SIMBA-ET at each detected interface (atmosphere-snow, snow-ice and ice-ocean). To do this, we combined two derivatives of measured temperatures (the ET vertical gradient and HT rise ratio) to reduce the detection uncertainty of all interfaces considered. The snow and/or ice surface, consequentially the snow depth, is determined by the ET vertical gradient. Potential formation of snow ice is not explicitly considered in this data set, but may occur as depicted by vertical changes of the snow-ice interface position. The ice-ocean interface is usually determined using the HT rise ratio and serves as the lower limit for ice thickness. Overall, the accumulated error is 2 to 4 times the sensor spacing for both the snow depth and ice thickness. For interface temperatures, individual sensors in the chain measure with a temperature resolution of 0.0625°C, with the overall accuracy landing in the range of ± 2°C (Jackson et al., 2013). After the snow cover has melted, negative values for snow depth may indicate the onset of ice surface melt.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.973193
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-13-00058.1
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.973193
Provenance
Creator Preußer, Andreas ORCID logo; Nicolaus, Marcel ORCID logo; Hoppmann, Mario ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2025
Funding Reference Horizon 2020 https://doi.org/10.13039/501100007601 Crossref Funder ID 101003472 https://doi.org/10.3030/101003472 Pan-Arctic observing System of Systems: Implementing Observations for societal Needs (Arctic PASSION)
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Publication Series of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 96 datasets
Discipline Natural Sciences; Physics
Spatial Coverage (-175.055W, -77.763S, 177.398E, 89.991N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 2012-08-11T01:00:39Z
Temporal Coverage End 2024-07-01T01:00:18Z